[De contemptu mundi]

Prologue to the book on the contempt of the world:

To the most reverend father and lord: the lord

Otto, by the grace of God and the Apostolic See, Bishop of the Church of Constance: and Count of Sonnenberg, this work happily begins.

on L... e...!

A small rectangular piece of pink fabric or paper is attached to the right margin, likely serving as a thumb-index or a physical marker.

God has made all the sons of men vain: more inclined toward evil than toward good: and since they are flesh, they are going and not returning: setting their thoughts toward those things that are of the world. Indeed, under the veil of false joy, it directs its steps toward the abyss, and by preferring the momentary to the eternal, it ascribes itself as a voluntary citizen of Pluto the Roman god of the underworld. Alas, how blind is the race of men: whom God created but a little lower than the angels, establishing this being above all the works of his hands: that it does not think whence it came or whither it shall go: when nothing is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than life. And that in a thousand, hardly one man reaches the limit of life: which the psalmist describing, says: the life of man is seventy years, but if it be in those who are strong, it reaches eighty: and more is labor and sorrow. For we who have not yet reached our fiftieth year: we know those who have entered the way of all flesh, more than those who still possess vital breath. To them, believe me, bitter death is equal.